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by batmanfromkrypton



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Coping, F/F, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt, TLOU2 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26137633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batmanfromkrypton/pseuds/batmanfromkrypton
Summary: ***MAJOR TLOU PT2 SPOILERS AHEAD***I doubt anyone who's not played the game yet would search for something like this but stillEllie is back from California to find her farm is completely abandoned. She now has no choice but to face her demons, knowing this time, revenge is not an option.(My first one shot)
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> I played TLOU2 again and felt the need to write a couple of words about Dina & Ellie. Hope you enjoy it.

Ellie walks through the gate and inside the front yard, their Farm in her sights.

All around her, an eerie quiet - like something really bad is about to happen.

Ellie knows she's not going to get mauled to death by some infected. It's not like those films she used to watch with him. This is real shit, but at least the infected make so much noise, and she's grown used to it - she could spot one in her sleep, probably. Besides, Jackson County is pretty well-patrolled, even though she did not encounter anyone from the town while going back. They may be on other routes.

Anyway, despite thinking all the reassuring thoughts she can, an uneasy feeling rests in her throat - like something really bad is about to happen. 

How long has she been away? She does not know, probably a couple of months, maybe more. She hasn't counted the days, but it was early Summer when she left, and now the air is more chilly. Or is it her mind?

She walks the few steps towards their front door calmly, pondering what could happen once she crosses the threshold. Then she does. 

Empty. Every room, but one. Packed with all her things.

Fuck.

She should have known.

She walks back out again and towards the town, leaving all of her stuff behind. Leaving his guitar behind. She won't need it anyway. 

* * *

It's not a long walk from the Farm to the settlement, but it takes her a while to get back - mainly because she walks slowly, partly because of her body, now skinny and frail, and partly as if trying to waste as much time as possible in the vain hope some miracle happens while she goes back to Jackson. But Ellie doesn't believe in miracles, and they only come if you wait for them. 

She does not want to go back. She does not want to face all of the people she left just to go on a suicide mission, seeking revenge - just to falter at the last moment. 

She does not want to stay out there, either. Best case scenario, she finds some stragglers and either they kill her right away or she joins them until they all get killed by hunters, a patrol or some infected. Worst case scenario, she dies alone in the woods at the hands of hunters, a patrol or some infected, getting left to rot under a tree or buried in shallow ground. 

She just wants one thing. She wants Dina back. She wants Joel back. She wants her life back. 

She knows she can't get what she wants. 

So she walks back to Jackson. She willingly avoids the main gate - too much traffic for her taste. Instead, she chooses a secondary one, back in the outskirts of town, much quieter. Indeed, there are just a couple of guards at the gate. 

At first, they don't seem to recognize her. Good. Then they do, but she doesn't think they actually _recognize_ her, and they don't ask no questions. Good. 

They agree to get Tommy there, as she waits sat in a small guardhouse next to the gate, trying her hardest to blend with the wall and disappear. She already regrets coming back. 

* * *

"She's in the guardhouse," she hears one of them say. "She said she wanted to see you."

"Aight," says Tommy. She hears his footsteps approaching the door, then it opens. 

As soon as he walks in, Tommy freezes, as if he'd just seen a ghost, an expression on his face that Ellie can't decipher - not that she tries too hard. 

"Ellie?" he asks. All he gets in response is Ellie looking up, an expression on her face that he can't decipher - no matter how hard he tries. 

He sprints towards her, arms opening as if trying to embrace her. 

"Don't," she says firmly. "Please." Her tone is much more relaxed, almost pleading. She doesn't deserve any affection.

"Sorry." An awkward silence follows, and Ellie sees Tommy swallow heavily. 

"How are you?" He asks. 

"Fine."

"Good... good." Another awkward silence. 

"Listen, Ellie. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come to you and--"

"It's okay. I didn't do it," she says after another moment of silence. "I didn't kill her."

"It's okay, Ellie, you shouldn't have--

"I left them to kill her. And then I didn't."

* * *

Ellie's back in her old house, sat on the bed with her back against the wall. Alone. 

She had slept intermittently for a few hours, and stayed in there most of the day. 

By now most people who know her must have heard that she's back. Dina must have heard that she's back. That is, if she's here. 

Tommy and Maria had come earlier in the morning to bring her a few things and check up on her, but she wasn't in a very talkative mood and she didn't ask.

She doesn't want to face her. She knows she eventually has to, but she doesn't want to. 

Eventually, she has to leave her garage and go to the clinic to get her wounds and her new chemical burn - hiding the bite she took in California - stitched up. She does so but accurately avoids the main road, instead sticking to the back part of the settlement, where very few people stay at this time of the day. She walks with her hoodie up over her head, hands hidden deep in her pockets, looking down the whole time. No one bothers her.

She ponders stopping at the cemetery on the way back, but decides against it. She doesn't want to risk any encounter. 

Another few days pass, where she spends most of her time waiting for it to pass, scribbling on her journal words that she always erases.

Tommy and Maria are the only ones that come to her house, just to bring her a few things and they do so in the early hours, anyway, so that no one sees them. They try to get her to eat, but she can't keep food in her stomach very long. They don't mention Dina. She doesn't ask, either.

* * *

She visits Joel, early one morning. She goes to the cemetery at dawn, hoping to avoid all people.

She's still actively trying to be left alone, although she knows that she shouldn't. But the only three people she deeply cared about in her life are either dead or they hate her, and rightly so.

She would need to talk to someone, but therapists are a thing of the past in the small community and besides, she knows she wouldn't open up with a stranger. She could barely do so with Joel. So she keeps doing that.

She talks to him, like they'd probably never done when he was still alive. She feels a sense of guilt for never really being able to tell him just how much she cared about him. For not being able to avenge him. For not being able to _save_ him. For leaving his guitar behind - not that she could play it, not anymore. 

She cries softly, and gets up when the lights get too bright and some people start roaming the street. 

That evening, Maria and Tommy visit her. It's the first time in the couple of weeks since she's returned that she actually has dinner with someone. She still can't eat much, but she's making progress. 

Later, Maria suggests that Ellie should start to get outside. After all, she has mostly healed and is regaining some strength. According to Maria, she can start to pick up some shifts at the clinic or someplace else, where she can work a little without straining her body too much. 

The girl isn't keen on promising anything. She knows and understands that she has to do her part, and that she eventually needs to confront her ghosts, but the thought of sharing an entire day with other people scares her to death, so Maria's proposal is met with silence.

* * *

When Maria leaves, Tommy stays a bit more. He tries to apologize for the harm he caused by sending Ellie down to California, but she deflects him. She knows that he's not responsible, that she would've been consumed by the thought anyway, and she tries to make it clear to him as best as he can. 

After a few moments of silence, quite commonplace around Ellie, she speaks.

"I miss Joel," she simply says.

"Yeah. Me too"

"What - what was he like? I mean, before the outbreak"

"You know... he was my big brother. We grew up basically alone, we stuck together most of the time. Everything he did, he did it for Sarah or me"

"Yeah. Yeah, I can relate"

They spend a few minutes reminiscing about Joel. For some reason, Ellie finds it healing. For just a moment, she feels fine.

"You know," Tommy says at the end of the conversation, "this is the most similar thing to what life before the outbreak was"

"It sure is better than the QZs"

"But no matter how well you settle, every person who's lived before all this misses something"

"Like Joel missed coffee?"

"Exactly! In the first years, I've seen people literally kill for cigarettes or alcohol"

"What is it that you miss?"

"I don't know for sure. Many things you can try and replicate... I mean, we have meat here - or beer, as shit as that is compared to the one we used to drink back in the day," he laughs. 

"You speak like an old man"

"I _am_ an old man, Ellie," he replies. "But anyway, you know what I miss? Baseball"

"Baseball?"

"Yeah. I was a big fan, I went to college games all the time and sometimes drove to Arlington or Houston to see the pros. Played some amateur games, too"

"With Joel?"

"Nah, he hated it. You know, I think there was a field in town. Just outside the gates, but it's safe territory. Passed by it a few times but now it's all weeds and dust of course"

"You could clean it again. I'd see you teaching the kids"

"Yeah," he says with a thoughtful expression, "yeah, I could... anyway, time for me to go", he adds, getting up with a moan.

They wish each other goodnight and he leaves. Before sleeping, Ellie realizes she just had the longest conversation in a couple of months. Somehow, she feels a little more relieved. For the first time in months, she gets asleep relatively quickly.

* * *

Sometimes, while lost in her own thoughts, Ellie finds herself playing with stuff in her right hand.

She used to open and close her switchblade, but she's lost that too. Sometimes she still looks for it in her pockets. Sometimes she reaches to grab it on from the desk next to her house. 

She can't.

* * *

It was bound to happen, and it happens some days later.

Ellie is helping Tommy at a greenhouse one morning - early, as usual. They are getting new panels for it, as an unexpected rainstorm tore a couple of them apart. Tommy reckons that it's time for Ellie to try and work a little, so he agrees to get up _really_ early so that she can avoid seeing anyone she might know.

The girl knows she will eventually have to start conforming to other people's working hours. Or maybe she could pick up some night lookout shifts.

These are the thoughts in Ellie's mind while she follows Tommy inside a small building, looking for the panels they need to assemble. 

It is in that precise moment that it happens.

"Uh, hey Tommy," she hears a voice, all too familiar, say behind her. "I saw you and I tho--"

Ellie doesn't even have to turn. 

"-- Ellie?"

She doesn't have to turn, but she does anyway. Her eyes, locked in the other voice's eyes. Just for a moment, enough to see her swallow. She looks away and nods, acknowledging that she is, indeed, Ellie. Although, in this precise moment, she'd like to be pretty much anyone else in the world.

"I - you... I thought..." the voice continues. Then she turns around with a sigh. Tommy tries to reach to her, "Dina?", but she lets her arm off his grasp and exits the room.

"Excuse me" is all she says.

* * *

Ellie finds Dina in one of the greenhouses, sat with her face in her hands amongst a few late crops of eggplant. 

She is still scared of talking to her, but seeing her - seeing her turn around like that - instilled in her chest a sense of guilt that feels much heavier than her fear.

And so she approaches her from a side. As she finally faces her, Dina looks up. Her eyes are red from crying. That look hurts Ellie more than any arrow or bullet, and she looks away once again. Fucking coward, going all the way to California to kill someone but then unable to face her (ex-)girlfriend. 

"How long have you been here?" Dina asks, her dry tone unable and unwilling to hide her bitterness.

"I don't know. Ten, twelve days. A couple of weeks, maybe"

"And you didn't even ask anyone to tell me," Dina shoots back, shaking her head in disappointment.

"Dina, I-"

"You left me!" she screams. "I begged you not to go, and you left me! Alone, with ou- my son! To go and kill someone in fucking revenge!"

"I didn't..."

"Do you know how I felt this whole time? You could've been hurt, or... Ellie, you could have been fucking dead!"

Dina's tone once again rises higher at the end of the sentence. Then, she continues. 

"I have waited and waited, Ellie, I've lost my sleep in that fucking farm - until I had to leave. And when I moved back here I kept waiting and waiting until I stopped. And then I stopped caring"

The last sentence sends an intense pain through Ellie. She feels the urge to throw up, but she suppresses it. 

"I didn't - I didn't kill her," Ellie says. It's the only thing her voice can say.

"Ellie, I - I don't fucking care. I care - cared that you left me."

"I'm sorry"

"You didn't fucking care back then though! Ellie, go away. Leave me alone," Dina says, almost crying. "Please, just go"

Ellie nods, and goes back to her house. The rest of the day passes as she cries on her bed, alone, until she doesn't have any more tears to cry.

* * *

Three sharp knocks on the door. 

Ellie gets up from her small table and walks through the door. Deep down inside her, she hopes it's Dina.

It's Tommy.

* * *

Ellie walks through the town, getting back home from a shift at the stables. Past the daycare.

She hears a kid laughing. She knows that laugh. 

She swallows heavily and keeps walking, stifling back the tears.

* * *

She overhears Tommy talking to some other guy about the baseball field. 

The other guy tells him they'll talk about it later, at the dance. 

She tries not to think about that.

* * *

In the end, she can't bear it anymore. Her sense of guilt is just too heavy, her useless hope is eating her alive. She just wants to tie up that loose end and try to get on with her life.

So she gathers up her desperation, trying - and failing - to lie to herself that it is courage. She has to go see Dina. She has to close that chapter and move on. She has to stop hoping, as her hope can't become reality. She knows that, but she needs to hear Dina say it.

She gets to her old home - Tommy told her she still lives there - and sees she's outside with JJ and Robin, his grandmother.

Dina looks up towards her and turns towards her son.

"JJ, go play inside with grandma for a moment"

Robin picks him up and brings him in. 

"Dina..." Ellie tries to say.

"What?"

"I - I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I understand tha--"

"You don't understand, Ellie. You don't." Dina's tone is firm.

"Please, Dina. Let me speak for a moment," Ellie pleads, to which the other girl reacts with a nod. So, she continues.

"Dina, I - I wasn't - I couldn't sleep, Dina! You know that! I - I know I'm an asshole and I know it was bad but I - I had to do that! I needed to confront my past, Dina!"

"Did you?"

"I... really don't know"

"Good. Good"

"Listen, Dina. I don't want to plead to you. I just want to say I'm sorry and then move on. I understand if - that you won't talk to me ever again, and you have every right to do so. I just want to say I'm sorry and then I'll leave you alone for good"

"I don't hate you, Ellie," Dina says firmly but without any warmth. 

"Thanks," the other girl answers. "You should"

"Ellie, I - I loved you! And you left! You can't just - you can't come back and think that everything will be alright!"

"I didn't. I never did. That's why I ignored you"

"Okay"

A few moments of silence pass before Ellie awkwardly speaks again. 

"Okay. I'll go, then"

She starts walking, hands deep down her pockets, right where she kept them the whole time.

"Ellie," she hears Dina call from behind. "I'm glad you're alive"

"Sure"

She turns back around and walks home.

* * *

Late summer turns to autumn. Autumn turns to winter. 

Ellie's more involved in Jackson. She does her work shifts in the greenhouses: it's decent, and just outside her house, but she'd rather go out on patrol. Maria says it's too early, though - she'll have to come back to her full strength before. Maybe in the spring, Maria says. 

There's a few upsides to working in the greenhouse, though. She's mostly inside even when it's snowing outside, and the other workers are decent people. Mostly older men and women who don't have the strength or will to work carpentry or go out on patrol anymore. They don't know her past, and they don't ask.

Some days, when the weather gets worse and the life suddenly becomes much less comfortable, she hears them talking about their lives before the outbreak. She has no idea how that could have been like, but she still feels anxiety grow in her, before she swallows it down. 

She starts to go out of her home a bit more, too. Mostly alone, or with Tommy. She finds losing Joel has strengthened their relationship - sometimes they talk about him for hours, even though she's not ready yet to open up to him, maybe not even to herself. Still, it's good for her to have someone who can understand her feelings a little. 

Sometimes she runs into Dina. They greet each other and keep going their own ways. She notices JJ has grown up.

* * *

One day, late in the winter when the snow has already started to melt, she's finally sent on patrol. A couple of guys are down with a fever and a larger group has been sent to clear the mall just outside Jackson, where a number of infected had been reported.

According to Maria, though, she's not strong enough yet to be sent on paired patrols, so they put her in a three-person group with Jeff, a dude about her age she had seen a couple of times, and Kelly, an older woman around her 40s, mostly known in Jackson for running the library, and for collecting scraps of paper anywhere she can in order to print new books.

Their route takes them to Eugene's place. They don't need to clear it, but they stop anyway. As Kelly scans the library for titles worth taking back to Jackson, Ellie lets all the memories connected to this place sink in.

The blizzard, taking shelter, Eugene's stash. The weed. The first night with Dina. 

Joel, already in the hands of the Wolves while she was just thinking about herself. His knee, his screams, his head. His head on the floor, his blood, his --

In a moment it all overwhelms her. She starts to lose the sense of where she is, she inhales heavily to take in some air, but she feels like she's underwater. She feels the cold floor of the lodge on her skin, the Wolves' hands and boots pining her down, she urges to scream but has no air to do so. She feels her hands sweating, her knees suddenly weak, she feels herself falling down and then --

"Hey," a voice takes her away from it all. Jeff's voice. "Hey. You alright?"

"Yeah," she lies. "Yeah, I was just having... thinking about something"

"Yeah. C'mon, let's go" 

Kelly has crammed a few books in her backpack and is mounting back on her horse. 

Ellie takes a deep breath, and they leave.

* * *

The large patrol comes back the day after. They have cleared the mall without anyone getting injured, even though a few stalkers have proven especially dangerous to the group.

They have brought back stuff, too. The mall had never really been looted to the ground, and they have been able to find a lot of supplies still intact. From the greenhouse, Ellie sees Tommy welcome them back in and help them stash the stuff they took. 

Later that evening, she hears three sharp knocks on the door. It's Tommy. 

He hands her a couple of small packages. Guitar strings. 

"I remembered one time you and Joel wanted to get strings, so... they got a lot of stuff, maybe you want these?"

"Thanks, Tommy," she replies as she holds the packages in her hands, as if examining them. "But, I don't have my - _his_ guitar anymore". She hands them back to Tommy. 

"I know, I know... I just thought - you know, there were a lot of them in his house. Some of them almost finished, you could put strings on one"

"I'm not sure I want to do that, really. Besides," she adds, raising her left hand. 

"Yeah, yeah. Well, do as you feel, Ellie. But please, take these. You might need them, you never know"

Ellie sighs, taking the strings again.

"Alright"

"Alright"

The door closes behind Tommy's back as Ellie turns around. She puts the two packages in a drawer in her room, and takes a quick shower.

* * *

"If I ever were to lose you,

I'd surely lose -- no, fuck!" Ellie spits off in the loneliness of her home. 

Late winter had already turned to spring when Ellie decided to pick up a guitar again. So she got hold of some old guitar - not one of Joel's, she couldn't bring herself to do that - and managed to restring it so that she could play it left-handed instead. 

Now, a week or so later, she is still struggling with changing her own habits. She still has that old song stuck in her brain, but she still can't sing past the first couple of verses or so before her voice breaks. As much as she has coped in the year that's passed, some things still hurt too much. 

She puts down the guitar and picks up her new journal, gifted to her by Kelly a couple of weeks after she nearly broke down at Eugene's place. As usual, it's full of sketches of things she sees - a kid playing in the snow, a snapped tree she saw while on patrol, a view of the streets just outside the enclosed part of Jackson - and crossed out words. 

She writes a lot more now than before - what she can't say out loud she writes down. And what she can't even write down she says to Joel. She goes at the cemetery a couple of times each week, and each time she feels like Joel is the only person capable of listening to her in the world. Each time, she wishes she had thought of that before. 

With the journal on her lap, she sketches her guitar, devoid of any strings. A recurring theme in the last few days.

* * *

March 2 comes and goes. Ellie visits Joel at the cemetery, earlier than usual. She talks to him, says she's sorry. She still feels guilty for so many things. For not being able to repair their relationship, for not being able to save him, for not being able to avenge him. She also tells him about Dina, about how she had ruined the only meaningful she had left, about how lonely she feels and yet how little she wants to be around other people.

She tells him she misses him, and as she gets up she leaves a few coffee beans on his grave, knowing he would have appreciated that. 

As she walks out of the cemetery, the sun still hiding behind the horizon as if it was waiting for her to go back home to rise up, Ellie feels strangely relieved. 

That same day, she plays her guitar. She manages to sing that old song. It's the first time in a very long time.

* * *

As the weather gets warmer Ellie gets better. She gains the strength and weight she had lost. She's able to go out on patrol more or less regularly. She's able to sleep almost peacefully, most nights.

"Alone and forsaken by fate and by man..."

One day Tommy knocks on her door as she's singing another old song that Joel had teached her. He holds a box in his hands - a few of Joel's things. He explains they need to give someone else the house now. Ellie understands and does not feel too angry about that - which disturbs her. She feels like she should be fighting to keep his house intact - but for what reason? Joel's not going to come back to live there. 

So she reluctantly agrees, in the next days, to split a few of his things with Tommy. She takes his photographs, mug and a few of his carvings, while Tommy takes his vinyls. He offers her the rocking chair, but she just refuses to take it. 

She packs his stuff in a box but can't bring herself to open it, fearing she'd be overwhelmed by the same old feelings of guilt and emptiness. The only picture she puts up is one of Joel and herself, in the stables with a horse. She relishes every happy thought that picture gives her - a picture of a younger, naive self, already broken but gone forever in the swing of a club.

* * *

Just a few days later, Tommy approaches Ellie with a couple of CDs in his hands, and proceeds to hand them to her.

”What’s this?”

”Music. From Joel’s”

”Halican Drops?”

”Yeah. They were Sarah’s favorite band”

”I thought you were keeping his music?”

”I’m not exactly a fan of this stuff. Me and Joel... we were into something different”

“He kept his daughter’s CDs for all those years...”

”He loved her more than anything,” Tommy answers.

”Yeah... yeah, I know,” Ellie replies, a tinge of sadness in her voice.

”Hey, Ellie,” Tommy says in a firm tone, suddenly holding the girl’s chin up in his hands. “You can’t compare yourself to Sarah. She was his daughter, you were - it’s just different, you know it”

”I know, it’s just... sometimes I wish, I don’t know - I wished he had opened up”

”Joel wasn’t like that. But you can’t doubt for any second that he cared about you. He cared about you most in the world, that I can assure you”

The man’s voice was now softer but still firm, trying to convince Ellie.

”Our relationship... we weren’t on the best of terms lately, and I never managed - I never really got to tell him I was sorry”

”You didn’t need to. He always knew you cared about him just like he did about you”

”I hope you’re right,” Ellie said holding back a couple of tears.

”Listen, Ellie.” Tommy paused for a second, before speaking again. “I can promise you, you never had anything to be sorry for. Joel always knew. He’d have done anything for you. Anything, that I can assure you”

”Yeah...,” Ellie said, suddenly inattentive as her mind raced back to Salt Lake City. "Yeah, I know that.”

A few more seconds of silence passed. Ellie took the CDs and walked home, thinking about Joel. Would he be proud of her?

* * *

Ellie sits at her desk, a pen in her right hand. 

In front of her, an old book with views of the state of Montana. She is drawing a few of them. The world pictured there looks a lot like the one she's living in, with nature taking center stage, and seemingly little trace of human life - it's almost striking how much what people thought was paradise looks like what they now think is hell.

"There's no time for dancing, there's no time for undecideds, no time for love like now"

She has headphones on, but this time they aren't plugged in her old walkman, which is resting on the safety of her bedside table. Instead, she plugged them into the stereo resting on her desk, and put in one of the CDs that Tommy gave her. 

"I turned away from the glorious light, I turned my head and cried"

That's how she spends her evening: drawing places she'd never seen and listening to Sarah's music. There's some kind of likable melancholy to that. 

"Whatever waiting means in this new place I am waiting for you"

These Halican Drops ain't that bad, she thinks. 

* * *

Tommy has indeed fixed the baseball field with the help of a few guys which shared his love of what was once dubbed America's favorite pastime - "now supplanted by surviving and killing infected, I guess", in Tommy's own words. 

Sure, he can't play, but he manages to get a couple dozens people involved and organizes a big community event. Despite her pleads, he practically drags Ellie there. 

So she's sitting on a chair with her journal, sketching some young boys and girls trying to hit a ball with a stick when she hears a soft, high-pitched voice behind her blabber and laugh. She doesn't have to turn around to see who's there - she could recognize that laugh a block away. Yet she turns around. 

JJ is sitting on the ground beside her, gesturing and blabbering, trying to express something Ellie's not sure she understands. Behind him, she sees Dina coming.

"JJ, come back here! - Oh, hey"

"Hey"

"I - I hope he didn't bother you," Dina says, picking up her son.

"He never bothers me"

"Yeah. Well, see you," Dina says as she starts to turn around. But JJ cries, and gestures towards Ellie, his tiny hands trying to grasp at air. Dina suddenly stops, still half-turned, surprised at her baby's behavior. The two girls share an embarrassed look as JJ still leans towards Ellie.

"I think he wants a hug," his mother says. 

"Yeah"

The taller girl picks him up and sits him on her lap as he laughs, and suddenly she feels like for a moment all of her wounds have completely healed. She always felt JJ's power in making her a better person, but in that exact moment the realization of how powerful their bond still feels hits her. 

"Hey, Potato," she greets with an excited tone. Despite her furrowed brow, Dina can't help but smile - but Ellie, completely taken by JJ's warmth, can't see her.

* * *

"Ellie, I - we need to talk," Dina says when she picks up JJ again. "Do you mind if I leave JJ at Robin's?"

"Sure.

"Okay. Let's go"

The walk from the field to JJ's grandparents' house is mostly silent, apart from some occasional cries by the baby, and Dina's efforts to calm him down. Ellie doesn't say a word - they have been too close, too intimate to engage in small talk; as concentrated on their own thoughts as they are, silence is much less awkward. 

After kissing JJ goodnight, Dina leads Ellie down the road, and once again the only sounds that can be heard come from the houses or the world outside Jackson. Finally, they sit on a bench, near Dina's place, where once upon a time a bus stop stood. 

"I saw how he looks at you," Dina finally says, then she stops for a moment. "And how you look at him," she adds. 

"Yeah," Ellie replies, unsure what to say about Dina's comment. She'd like to say how much she misses him, how much she misses them, how sorry she is - but she can't. So she just looks in the distance, silently hoping that their conversation will be over soon. 

"He'd ask about you, you know? Ask where you were, when you'd be back"

Silence.

"What should've I told him? That you were leaving to kill some girl in revenge?" the girl's tone is becoming more and more bitter with each word. 

Silence. 

"You - you said you loved me!"

"I meant it"

"Then why did you fucking leave?" Dina's now plainly yelling in the empty street, not wondering if anyone might hear from one of the houses.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come," Ellie says, getting up from the bench. "He's gonna forget me in a few months anyway"

"No, he's not!" Dina insists, tears in her eyes. "And I'm not going to, either. No matter how fucking hard I try"

"I'm sorry"

"You should be."

Ellie nods.

"I - I just wish you'd never left. We were - it was all just so good, I --"

"I know. I ruined it. But it wasn't good, Dina!", Ellie replies, her voice louder for the first time. "Not for me", she adds, now calmer. "Dina, I couldn't fucking sleep. I - I needed closure, okay? I couldn't have kept acting like this feeling - this guilt wasn't eating me alive from the inside! I felt like Joel is fucking dead because of me! Sometimes I still do"

"Did you find closure in California, then?"

"I don't know." Silence. "I didn't --"

"I don't care what you did to her, Ellie"

"Okay"

Silence. 

"Ellie, I - a part of me wants to tell you to fuck off. And another one wants to... I don't know, go back to - to the farm, to before, I don't know"

"We can't go back"

"I know. But I - I'd like, I _want_ to give you another chance! I'd fucking love to - to forget you left me -us! - and take you back in. But how can I be sure that you won't be leaving again? That I won't spend any more nights wondering if you're ever going to come back?"

Ellie shakes her head. Silence.

"I'm not sure you can trust me. I - I'm not sure about anything right now. I'm - I'm just tired", the taller girl says, biting her lip. She lowers her head, grazing the skin on her left hand wound with her right fingers. 

Silence.

Ellie turns, looking at Dina. Even in the dim moonlight, she could trace her features with her eyes closed. She can see the moon reflecting in her watery eyes, its light underlying a tear streaming down her cheek, coasting her nose.

Suddenly, Dina speaks. 

"Do you still love me?"

Silence. 

"Yes. I think I do, yes"

"I just want to - I want us to be us again. I've tried faking it but I just - I can't keep doing this. I want to give you another chance, but I - I fear you'd...". Dina doesn't finish her sentence. 

"I can't blame you"

"Convince me. Convince me I don't have to be scared! Convince me to take you in again! Please, Ellie"

The other girl shakes her head.

"I can't. I don't deserve it"

"What if _I_ deserve it? What if _I_ deserve another chance at being happy? What do you think about that, Ellie?" Dina's voice is at this point almost desperate. 

Silence.

"Please, talk to me, Ellie," pleads the curly haired girl, tears in her eyes. 

"What do you want me to tell you? I still love you, of course I fucking do! I miss you and I miss JJ but I - I don't trust myself! What if I keep having nightmares? What if I'm going crazy? You don't understand, Dina, you can't understand".

Silence. Ellie bites her lip, her right hand on her left shoulder, as if adjusting a backpack's strap. Dina sobs quietly for a moment. Then, she speaks. 

"Let me trust you. Please".

Ellie inhales deeply, not sure how she should feel.

"Okay"

They get up from the bench and she walks Dina home. That night, in her bed, she can't get any sleep.

* * *

September 26th.

Ellie's hands graze the ground on Joel's grave. They've just finished talking, like they always do. Sometimes Ellie feels like they've been talking more now he's gone than before, but not today. Today, she is just grateful for the conversation they had.

Before she gets up, she leaves a small bundle on his gravestone. Guitar strings. Inside, a piece of paper - his portrait. She sketched him, playing his guitar, a long time ago, when she thought she'd got over his death. Now, she's finally ready to give it to him. It's only right. 

"I'm sorry, I couldn't get any coffee. Maybe next time, alright?" she says as she gets up. "Happy birthday, old timer"

Outside the small cemetery, Dina is waiting, watery eyes, holding JJ. As Ellie joins them, she feels her plant a kiss on JJ's forehead, then on her right cheek. Ellie takes JJ in her arms and they start walking together, leaving the cemetery behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this. I had never written a one shot before, but I think maybe it's more suited to my writing.
> 
> Anyway, tell me what you think if you like.
> 
> (The lyrics to Halican Drops' song are actually from Michael Stipe & Big Red Machine's "No time for love like now". Since it was released in 2020, it doesn't exist in TLOU's universe, so I decided to pay tribute to one of my favorite songs from this year)


End file.
